


Sleight of Hand

by AwkwardAnnie



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M, Psychic Abilities, Public Hand Jobs, Thuringwethil sees all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 05:06:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3716230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardAnnie/pseuds/AwkwardAnnie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Housing his spirit in a physical body had seemed like a reasonable idea at the time, but Melkor was starting to think that he had catastrophically miscalculated."</p><p>Melkor is bored to distraction in the weekly strategy meeting. Sauron provides his own unique brand of entertainment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleight of Hand

Housing his spirit in a physical body had seemed like a reasonable idea at the time, but Melkor was starting to think that he had catastrophically miscalculated.

The Valar were not, as a rule, overfond of taking corporeal forms, preferring to exist as shapeless manifestations of thought and energy and communicating with each other with directed exertions of will. Bodies, they thought, were limiting, claustrophobic and above all unhygienic. Melkor disagreed, firstly out of general principle since he tried to avoid agreeing with the other Valar wherever possible, but also because he had found there to be many benefits to wearing a physical form. Floating around Valinor as a vague gathering of power was all very well, but when it became necessary to roll up one's sleeves and actually start fiddling around with the workings of Arda it helped to be able to touch things. There were also the myriad textures and sensations that were lost in the spirit world: the crunch of snow underfoot, the bite of the icy wind, the heat of the forges, the snap of bone under gauntleted fingers; each one tiny but significant, to be treasured.

And then, of course, there was Sauron.

Of all the deeds of Melkor that so shocked and appalled the other Valar, of which there were many, the one that would have ranked a strong second on the list, right underneath 'establishing an empire of darkness and destruction without divine permission', was almost certainly the decision to take his loyal lieutenant to bed.

Valarin relationships were intellectual pursuits. If there was intimacy between spouses, it was in the form of an intermingling of essences, a meeting of minds rather than bodies, and they thought this right, proper and rather less messy than the physical approach. But, as Sauron had been both able and extremely willing to demonstrate, the lower ranks of the Maiar took a broader view of the subject. Melkor had spent many a pleasant night with his face shoved roughly into his pillow, Sauron's fingers twisting in his hair and tugging hard enough to sting, and had decided that the Valar had missed a trick.

There were downsides to a corporeal life, however. Travel was one; all distances were much the same to a being of energy, but matter had weight and location, and that location was often a long way from the other bits of matter that mattered, as it were. It made keeping oneself informed of the goings-on of an evil nation quite the chore. Messages took an excruciatingly long time to arrive, even carried in the claws of Thuringwethil, who was beginning to complain of feeling like an overlarge homing pigeon. As such, it was a major breakthrough for communication when Melkor discovered that he could converse with Sauron through an exertion of will, as was the custom in Valinor. It was significantly more difficult while housed in a body and took some months of practice before they could communicate over distances greater than the length of Melkor's throne room but it made life a lot easier, beginning with no longer having to shout over the collective racket of ten thousand orcs.

The transition to exerting physical effects had been entirely a design of Sauron's. He had turned to Melkor during a tour of the training grounds and said, "Observe, my lord," and Melkor had observed, because those three words had never yet been followed by anything less than worthwhile.

Sauron had pointed out a group of orcs lazing in a group off to the side of the ground, passing around a bottle of something dark and potent. As Melkor watched, the ringleader of the group, a big, dark orc missing a sizeable chunk of his face, raised the bottle. Then he lowered it and looked around and behind him.

"Oi," he said, loud enough to be heard over the shriek of metal and the shouts of the instructors. "Who tapped me on the shoulder?"

There was a general mumbling among the group, the consensus of which was that no-one had tapped anyone. The leader shrugged and took a drink, only to spit it out again and leap to his feet.

"There it is again!" he cried with another look all around. "Own up, you maggots. Which one of you tapped me?"

"Ah, sit down, you great fool," grumbled his neighbour. "Looks like you've had enough." And she reached up and snatched the bottle away. The leader rounded on her, then immediately spun around and grabbed the orc on his other side by the collar.

"What'd you go and do that for?" he demanded.

Beside Melkor, Sauron made a noise which sounded like an attempt to cover up an undignified snort.

"Do what?" asked the orc being held.

"Don't play games, maggot," roared the leader. "I felt you pinch me!"

"'ere, I didn't pinch no-one!" protested the accused orc.

"He didn't," chipped in one of the other members of the group, but the leader was having none of it.

"You did so! There, you did it again!" And he raised a fist, ready to back up his accusation with the customary violence. Fortunately for the innocent orc, at this point the leader's other neighbour broke the empty bottle over his head and all-out war began.

Apparently unable to restrain himself any longer, Sauron burst into a terrifying cackle, causing the orcs nearest him to take several wary steps backwards, just in case. Melkor pieced the puzzle together.

 _You did that_ , he asked silently.

 _Yes, my lord_ , replied Sauron clearly in his mind, while the rest of the Maia was occupied wheezing in mirth.

"Impressive," said Melkor out loud. "How long have you been working on that?"

Sauron straightened up and composed himself. "A month, perhaps two," he replied. "The range is no more than twenty paces on a clear day, but I hope to increase it to a hundred at least."

Melkor looked over to the edge of the ground, where the instructors were pulling apart the squabbling orcs and threatening them with all manner of unpleasant punishments. "And does it have use besides causing riots in my armies?"

"Perhaps," said Sauron cryptically. Melkor opened his mouth to berate his lieutenant for speaking in riddles and flinched when he felt a light touch brush his cheek. It came again, but harder and more distinct and this time the sensation was unmistakably that of fingertips dragging gently across his skin. It felt so genuine that he had to glance down to see that yes, Sauron's hands were definitely behind his back. When he looked back up, Sauron's eyes were glinting with mischief and his lip curled up in the hint of a smirk.

Melkor tried to ignore the feeling that someone was running their thumb over his lower lip, which was surprisingly difficult. "I think I shall visit the dragons next," he said firmly.

"Certainly, my lord," said Sauron, and the ghostly touch vanished but the smug smile was still flitting about his face.

This should have been a warning sign.

But running a successful dark empire needed thought and Melkor only had so much attention to spare, and so Sauron's interesting new pastime was quickly forgotten under the pile of other decisions that had to be made. Forgotten, that is, until now.

They sat in conference with Melkor's collection of generals to hear their weekly reports. Melkor's presence at these meetings was largely a formality, for it was Sauron who was really holding court. To Sauron were entrusted the commonplace responsibilities and realities of war and a truly terrifying proportion of the day-to-day workings of Melkor's growing dominion passed through his deceptively graceful hands. Most of the questions and complains of the generals would be about rations or training or other such matters, trivial compared to the grand machinations of the campaign as a whole but nevertheless requiring attention, and it was Sauron who would give it. Unfortunately the necessity of these meetings did not diminish their dullness and Melkor was growing more disinterested by the second.

To give an example, the orc currently speaking had been doing so for at least ten minutes already. He was one of the oldest orcs in all of Melkor's many legions and it was beginning to show. At some point in the past, perhaps as a result of one too many blows to the head, or a particularly memorable tour in the north of Angmar, he had developed a distressing love of fish; every week he would politely (for an orc) but persistently enquire as to the progress being made on the plan to supply herring as part of the standard ration, usually by means of a long-winded but pointless anecdote and every week Sauron would make noises to the effect that the plan was still in its early stages and would be introduced at an unspecified point in the future, which usually satisfied him. Personally, Melkor would have been quite happy to simply break the old coot's neck and be done with it but Sauron, who had rather more patience when it was required, had been concerned that doing so might destabilise the power structure and the last thing they needed was an army on the brink of civil war.

The old orc finally drew his rambling argument to a conclusion. A couple of the other generals nudged neighbours who had been dozing. At the end of the table opposite Melkor, Sauron shuffled his pile of parchments and papers and said, with a remarkable level of diplomacy, "Thank you for that report, General Razbug. I assure you that our suppliers are investigating the logistics of your request and will be reporting their findings to me as soon as they are able. Now, General Gulbuk?"

Gulbuk was repeating a report that Melkor had already read; instead of listening he found himself absently watching his lieutenant who looked for all the world as though he were hanging on every word, though Melkor knew for a fact that Sauron had not only read the report but had annotated it, corrected the spelling and handed it to Melkor himself. As if he could feel his lord's eyes on him, Sauron's gaze flicked briefly towards Melkor and a smirk slipped quickly across his face before vanishing.

 _Bored, my lord?_ he asked silently. Melkor did not deign to reply, judging his aura of restlessness to be evidence enough.

Gulbuk droned on about patrol routes, the monotony broken at intervals with answers to questions posed by Sauron, who would consider each answer carefully and jot down a few notes in the margin of the report, and Melkor's attention wandered.

After some minutes, something brushed his shoulder. He looked around but saw nothing. It came again, and this time it was the feel of a hand settling on his shoulder and squeezing gently, as if in reassurance. Melkor recalled the image of the training grounds and smiled in remembrance. He met Sauron's eyes down the length of the table and that smirk flashed over his lieutenant's face again. The hand on his shoulder vanished. Melkor was suddenly slightly concerned.

Several seconds later, a touch came upon his knee, gently at first, then a firm pressure like fingers. He narrowed his eyes at Sauron, who was handing Gulbuk a map and asking something about alternative routes.

 _Mairon_ , he thought, _remove your hand from my knee._

Sauron did not look up. _My hand is not on your knee._ And it was true that both of the Maia's hands with their many bejewelled rings were clearly visible on the table.

 _You know of what I speak_. The spectral finger was tracing slow circles now. It was quite distracting.

 _I am not sure I do, my lord_. Sauron asked two of the other generals for their opinions. While they argued amongst themselves, the hand on Melkor's leg slid up his inner thigh and he was forced to bite back a wholly inappropriate gasp. He settled for levelling a vicious glare down the war table.

_I will end you, wicked creature._

_Such flattery,_ purred Sauron in his mind. Out loud, he said, "Lady Thuringwethil, you have scouted this area extensively. Do you have anything to add?"

The vampire had delivered her own report some time earlier and had spent the time since with her taloned feet propped up on the table, picking her teeth with a long fingernail. At Sauron's request she uncurled herself, removed her feet from the stack of inventories on which they were resting and leaned forward to take the map being offered. What she said went unheeded by Melkor, however, because that was when the second ghostly touch brushed his waist and slipped down to run its fingers over his stomach. Melkor gripped the arms of his throne and tried to remember how to breathe normally.

Thuringwethil had finished speaking, and Sauron was nodding as if he had received useful information. "I am loath to alter the routes permanently without further investigation," he was saying. Then he looked up with a wicked smile on his lips and asked, "What say you, my lord?"

Melkor fixed him with a glare that would have liquefied a mere mortal. _I swear, Gorthaur, I will slay you where you sit_.

 _Before all your generals?_ The voice in Melkor's mind had turned sly. _That would be inadvisable._

Melkor gritted his teeth and said, with some difficulty, "I am in accord." Thuringwethil raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Very good, my lord," said Sauron, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. "Send a patrol along the new route twice a day and have them report. We will reconsider a more permanent change next week." He made a note on a fresh parchment, selected the next in the seemingly endless pile of items needing consideration and read it aloud. As he did so the hand on Melkor's leg ceased its teasing exploration of his inner thigh and came to rest directly over his groin. Then it _squeezed_.

No force on Arda could have stopped the groan that forced its way out of his throat, though with great effort he was able to turn it into a cough of sorts. A couple of the generals looked round half-interested, but most were listening to Sauron's summary of the next issue. Melkor tore his eyes from his wretched lieutenant to discover that Thuringwethil was regarding him with a curious expression. Then her eyes glowed as she shifted her vision down into the infrared, and Melkor realised in a rush of mortification that it would make the wave of heat flooding up his face readily apparent. He glowered at her, daring her to speak, but she merely frowned.

"...and see what transpires," Sauron finished, though what the first half of the sentence had been was anybody's guess. "Now, before we conclude, is there any other business?"

Melkor hoped desperately that there was none, but it was a foolish hope. The old orc with the fish fixation raised his hand. Several of the other generals made frantic don't-let-him-get-started gestures. Sauron met Melkor's eyes.

 _Don't you dare_ , Melkor hissed.

Sauron put on an expression of angelic incomprehension and said innocently, "General Razbug?"

There was a collective groan of despair from the gathered generals, which was convenient because it concealed Melkor's own moan of perverse pleasure as the hand on his groin resumed its kneading. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Thuringwethil's ear twitch.

 _I will punish you for this, Mairon_ , he threatened, as Razbug launched into a rambling speech virtually indistinguishable from his last one.

Sauron settled back in his chair and regarded his lord over steepled fingers. _Will you, now? How terrifying. Tell me, my lord: how would you have me?_

The sensation of fingernails slid up Melkor's chest and he shuddered. He was hard now, far harder than he felt was reasonable given that his lieutenant was not actually touching him, and definitely harder than he should be while surrounded by the leaders of his dark armies. _I shall have you in irons, accursed wretch,_ he managed.

Sauron raised an eyebrow. _Irons? Very well, though personally I have found that they chafe. Do you propose to chain me to the wall as well, or have me over a rack? I would be amenable to either arrangement._

Melkor swallowed another noise of pleasure and imagined briefly the possible consequences of coming to glory in the midst of his most trusted servants. Would the dullards even notice? He risked a glance at Thuringwethil and found to his horror that she was watching him intently, a worrying grin twisting her face.

 _Or perhaps,_ continued Sauron conversationally, his face a perfect mask of polite interest _, we might forgo the irons and you could simply bend me over this table, and I will promise not to move my hands._

Try as he might, Melkor could do nothing to stop himself from moaning at the image of Sauron face-down in the middle of his blasted agendas, hands pinned over his head, gasping out his master's name in ecstasy. He did not realise exactly how loudly he had done so until there was a tittering from around the table and one of the assembled orcs cried, "See, Razbug? Even Lord Melkor is fed up of your bloody fish!"

Thuringwethil covered her mouth with her hand. She looked like she was trying not to burst out laughing. For a brief moment Melkor considered whether he could kill every creature in the room, raze the entire fortress to the ground and retire to some far corner of Middle-Earth to take up a less stressful hobby, like keeping bees. Fortunately the confounded orc finally finished his speech with the exact same conclusion (namely, the need for herring) and there was a ripple of relief around the room.

"A fine summary, General," said Sauron pleasantly. "I can only repeat my previous response regarding the projected timeline for implementing your request. That concludes this week's meeting. Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen; we reconvene at the same hour one week hence." He rose, and propriety demanded that Melkor rise too. This would not have been a problem if certain parts of Melkor had not got the idea ahead of time. But not getting up would be insulting, so he stood gingerly and hoped that the table and the inattentiveness of orckind would conceal exactly how compromised he was. The generals filed out, talking and grumbling amongst themselves, but Thuringwethil paused as she passed Sauron. She whispered something in his ear and chuckled at the sly smile it produced. She cast one last glance back at Melkor, who was sure that he must have been practically purple in the face by now, and left, her dark, smoky laughter lingering behind her like fog.

The great oak door of the war room slammed shut, and Melkor let out a long moan and collapsed back in his throne. "Thou fiend," he groaned. "Thou vile, damnable, impudent little whelp..."

"Is something amiss, my lord?" asked Sauron innocently, straightening his stack of notes. Melkor very nearly leapt from his throne to strangle him, and indeed was only stopped by the incorporeal hand that caressed his chest flicking a nail over his nipple. Instead of the vicious wrath of a dark lord, what actually emerged from his mouth was more of a yelp fading into a hum of delight, accompanied by a jerk of his pelvis. Sauron smiled wickedly and left his papers, moving around the table towards his master. Melkor's eyes followed the calculated sway of his hips as if hypnotised.

"Why?" he gasped. Sauron spread his hands as if the answer was obvious.

"You were bored," he said. "I thought you might appreciate some entertainment."

"And you thought this the—ah!—the most appropriate form?"

Sauron stopped beside Melkor's throne. Then he folded his hands behind his back and leaned down to peer at his master as if examining a new-born werepup. "It does seem to have been most effective," he commented, and seemingly to punctuate this remark gave his master's aching hardness a rough squeeze that made Melkor see stars. "However, if you have not enjoyed it, my lord, then there is only one course of action."

For several awful moments in the middle of that meeting Melkor had been concerned that he had miscalculated. But then Sauron seized the front of Melkor's robe in his actual hands, pulled him forward and growled, "Punish me," and Melkor decided, no.

Physical bodies were _definitely_ the way to go.


End file.
